On the Menu: Squirrel's Eastern Wharf gets Detroit-ish pizza right slice by slice

This one is a bit of a road trip, but stay with me. It ends with a unique and tasty pizza at Squirrel’s new Eastern Wharf outpost.

Not long after I left my hometown outside of Rochester, I realized that it was useless and maddening to tell people that I was “from New York.” To the rest of the world, that prepositional phrase invariably meant that I grew up taking the 7 out to Shea and saw at least one Broadway show a month.

While I talk fast, know every episode of Seinfeld verbatim, and will watch the originals of The Odd Couple and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three any time they are on TV, that is where my 212-ness ends.

Having lived closer to Toronto or in Baltimore for the majority of my life, I hate the Yankees with a passion, and do not get me started on Billy Joel. Too late: he is the worst.

The separation between The Big Apple and the parts of its namesake state that actually grow apples is, for the most part, a cultural chasm whose expanse includes certain culinary customs.

Take, in this instance, the pizza. All over the country, folks seem familiar with the “New York-style” pie, a hand-tossed crust that is as thin as four pages of The Village Voice with a slightly more rotund edge, its flaccid slices requiring folding just to reach one’s mouth.

Fuhgeddaboudit. That kind of pizza is not what we Western New Yorkers grew up gobbling down. From Buffalo to Syracuse, family parlors have abounded for decades, the majority serving a thicker, breadier, chewier crust, far more Sicilian than Neapolitan. In Rochester’s suburbs, Pontillo’s was a favorite, and our little town of Penfield boasted as many as three other mom-and-pop pizzerias at any one time.

During our two decades living in Baltimore and craving Western New York-style slices, Matthew’s Pizza was our mainstay. Opened in 1943, I think that, as of 2015, its crew was using the original gloriously charred round metal pans to churn out high-walled pies with cheese and sauce pushed to their crispy edges. Technically, these ‘pan pizzas’ were not what we knew from our Rochester youth, nor were they true Chicago deep-dishers. They were just damn good, hon.

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The chemistry behind Detroit-ish pizza

Which brings us back to Savannah ― by way of Detroit: what Chris Dickerson dreamed up and his Squirrel’s Eastern Wharf team is now dishing out is a pizza of yet another area code, one that smacks of what we have seen but once since we moved to the 912. Only the scrumptious grandma slice at Big Bon Pizza has come close to replicating what we love most about the Western New York-style when it comes to structure and slightly airy crumb.

When Dickerson kicked open his patio parlor’s wraparound shipping container windows in early May, another particular pie joined the city’s plethora of yummy options: the Detroit-ish, his mad pizzaiolo’s take on a higher-hydration dough.

“I wanted to grow and expand my knowledge base but also bring something to Savannah that I thought would be appreciated,” he said. “Personally, I think a Detroit is typically too soggy. Our Detroit-style is a crispier version.”

The discrete differences are down to science. First, this higher-protein dough is 10% double-ground semolina, which “makes it extra-crispy and absorbs more liquid,” and the mass undergoes a three-day fermentation.

The second change is the pan. A standard Detroit pizza pan is 2.5” deep. Calling on his days as a chef and learning about microclimates, Dickerson’s experimentation concluded that the deep pan leads to less convection because the “air currents can’t circulate as much.”

Squirrel’s rendition is called ‘Detroit-ish’, in part, due to the use of a Sicilian pan, a full inch shallower than its Motor City cousin. The crust is parbaked for eight minutes and is then chilled, which causes it to shrink in the pan. Before the to-order final bake, the gap is filled with cheese to create the frico, that crusty outer crust, the main reason that the 8” x 10” pie is cut into four slices: two edges for everyone.

“We’re very intentional about getting the cheese to the edge and pushing it down,” Dickerson explained. “When we bake it, it melts down the sides. The butterfat coats it, and we get that frico.”

Instead of the traditional Wisconsin brick cheese for this final toothy touch, a brined part whole-part skim mozzarella seals the deal.

“For somebody who knows Detroit, I think they’ll be happy with it because it references Detroit, but they’ll understand the subtle differences,” Dickerson said, who has kept the ‘sauce-on-cheese’ convention.

Globetrotting through pizza preps

The Squirrel’s Eastern Wharf menu features four pizza preparations, each offered either as red or white, including the big round NY-ish, the thin-and-crispy Tavern Style, and the Detroit-ish, which can be made gluten-free. The same dough is used for all three pies, the product of Dickerson’s substantial R&D, as well as Bianco di Napoli tomato sauce, made from organic California tomatoes picked at the peak of ripeness.

Though the NY-ish pizza our lovely server set down at the family seated next to us looked fantastic, I already know that my wife and I always will order the Detroit-ish. Our friends ordered a gluten-free white and happily could not tell the difference between it and the other crust, though the sauceless white pizza needed some savory dipping sauce.

The Tavern Style is a Chicago-thin, which Dickerson calls Squirrel's “most technical” pizza, cooked three-quarters of the way on a pre-seasoned shovel before it is slid directly onto the stone. The pie is crispy and chewy and party-cut into squares.

“That, actually, has become our most popular pizza,” Dickerson said.

Dining at this Squirrel’s is just as delightful as a visit to the Starland Yard original, but by design, these are two distinct destinations. Underneath sailcloth awnings and steel container panels, patrons at the Eastern Wharf eatery can enjoy the frico in the al fresco atmosphere, and seats at the peninsular bar afford ample views of flatscreen TVs and the riverfront.

More importantly, the pizzas are not the same. If you want a more Roman-style cracker crust, head to Bull Street. If you want to chew on each bite, drive downtown.

Now, we can alternate our pizza patronage among our three favorite local joints: grandma slices at Big Bon, the most righteous Neapolitan at Vittoria, and a Detroit-ish at Squirrel’s Eastern Wharf.

Like it says on those generic brown delivery boxes: “Pizza: It’s the Greatest!”

Squirrel’s Pizza Eastern Wharf (100 Port Street) is open seven days a week: Monday through Thursday (5 p.m. to 9 p.m.), Friday (5 p.m. to 10 p.m.), Saturday (12 p.m. to 10 p.m.), and Sunday (12 p.m. to 9 p.m.).

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Squirrel's Eastern Wharf broadens the landscape of Savannah's pizza styles